Page 29 - BiTS_12_DECEMBER_2024

JP: Yeah, I grew up in South Central Los Angeles, and I grew up playing instruments
and playing the music that was around the house that I liked the most, and that tended

to be usually acoustic blues and banjo music and fiddle music and things like that.

BiTS: That must be pretty unusual music for people to have around their house.
Whose music was it?

JP: Not unusual at all.
Everybody in my
neighbourhood, that's the

music of their culture. So
you know, it wasn't really
hard to find. Everybody

played lots of blues and
people liked country music
and all that good stuff. And

then you get good Spanish
music down there, so it was
all good.

BiTS: Did you have a
favourite musician or

musicians that you listened to?

JP: Well, when I was about 12, my aunt got me a CD of Uncle Dave Macon and Son
House. So that was some of the first records I got. I guess those would be the first

two. Then I got DeFord Bailey and Charlie Patton and all those folks from down there
in Mississippi, and just sort of had a natural progression of music to extend to all the
different realms of black folk music, which is what I mostly play.

BiTS: I gather when you were young, you weren't blind. It was something that
developed later in life. Is that right?

JP: I've been visually impaired most of my life, but it didn't get very noticeable until

I was about 17-years-old. Around that time, I started to get treatment and help for it,
which allowed me to live a pretty independent life.

BiTS: Okay, I understand. When did you start to perform in public?

JP: Since I was about 15.

BiTS: And where would that have been?

JP: I was at a gig playing bluegrass banjo in the Hollywood Hills.

BiTS: Were you really? That's absolutely fabulous. So you do a bit of claw hammer
stuff as well as the more traditional black styles.

JP: Those are one and the same, my friend.